A FEW GOOD MEN

One man, a rapist, reached out for her in violence and rage. An hour later, while the trembling girl waited at the hospital, another man reached out in compassion.

He said his name was Bruce and he was from LaCASA, the Lake County Council Against Sexual Assault. "We're here to help," he said softly. "Another advocate is on her way. She'll be here very soon."

He emphasized the word "She."

The shaken girl, embarrassed at having to wait next to men suffering from gunshot wounds and stabbings, nodded and relaxed slightly. She wasn't sure what she needed. It just felt good to have someone there.

When the female advocate arrived, Bruce Marshall quickly slipped outside to the waiting room to talk to members of the girl's family. He listened to her raging father. He let her older brother vent.

After five years of volunteer work at LaCASA in Gurnee, Marshall knows his place as a man in a rape-crisis center.

"It's my No. 1 priority in life," said Marshall, who never signs up for shifts like other advocates, but makes himself available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "The minute I walked into LaCASA, a peaceful feeling came over me. There's good energy there."

It isn't that men are unwelcome at rape-crisis centers-it's that they're strangers to aftercare, associated more with the crime than the cure.

According to the Pennsylvania-based National Coalition Against Sexual Assault, 98 percent of rapists are male.

But that doesn't mean men aren't wanted or needed at the crisis centers. Men and young boys are also rape victims. The survivor's family members may need to talk. And both men and women can educate the community by talking at churches, schools, corporations and clubs.

"Calling it a woman's issue makes just half the planet responsible," said Torrie Flink, executive director of LaCASA. "We need men to become outraged that victims are their sisters, mothers, daughters and friends. I'd like to make an appeal to welcome and include men. People used to be staunchly against it, but that's changing."

Directors of rape-crisis centers agree that more men are getting involved, but it's happening at a painstakingly slow pace. LaCASA has a volunteer base of 120 people and 6 are male, one of the best turnouts in the state. The Rape Victims Advocates in Chicago has a pool of 130 volunteers, including 5 men who work with community-outreach programs. Mutual Ground in Aurora has 40 volunteers, and 2 men are on call in case the rape victim is male or the significant other needs attention.

"It's difficult for men to do hospital calls, because they're usually the last person the victim wants to see," said Judy Frye of Mutual Ground, which is both a domestic-violence and rape-crisis center. "We've even had problems with (survivors' reactions to) male doctors and male nurses."

A positive experience

But depending on the situation, a caring, calming man can have a positive effect on a rape survivor.

"In my clinical work with rape survivors, about half appreciate talking to a man at some point (after being raped) and about half don't," said Kata Issari, president of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault. "It can be a way to counteract, to have a positive experience that can be affirming about a man in their life. But the gender of the person needs to be decided by the survivor."

Understandably, men aren't generally used as advocates-volunteers who are immediately paged to hospitals to help sexual-assault victims, whether it's 3 p.m. or 3 a.m.

Advocates, who have at least 60 hours of training, are summoned from sleep, work or play to provide support and make sure the hospital staff and police treat the rape survivor with dignity.

They explain the humiliating but necessary evidence-gathering procedure, in which doctors or nurses-possibly male-will take semen and saliva samples and comb head and pubic hair for additional evidence.

And they make sure the survivor receives a ride home, has clean clothes and knows where to get counseling and other services.

"An advocate is like having a friend there to tell you what's happening or what should happen next," said Flink.

Not in the emergency room

Melissa Neargarder, 22, was beaten and raped at gunpoint in Zion by a stranger in 1990 when she was 17. She said her trauma was compounded by the fact that the ambulance drivers were male.

At the time of the attack, Neargarder was having her period, and she said explaining the source of the blood on the bed was embarrassing.

"For a man to be in the emergency room is not a good idea," said Neargarder, who went through LaCASA's individual and group-therapy programs. "But afterwards, it's a good idea to see or talk to men, because you need to reassure women that not all men are jerks."

Neargarder, who broke away from her attacker as he searched for his gun and ran to a nearby house for help, was met by a LaCASA advocate at the hospital. The advocate gave Neargarder's mother information about aftercare and called her the same week.

But for two years, Neargarder said she didn't think she needed help.

"Then suddenly it all hit, and I was scared to be alone, scared to walk to my car," she said. "The attack took just seven minutes, but it definitely changed my whole life around."

The advocate's role includes making sure patients are getting the information they need from doctors. According to the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which cites a 1991 study, 60 percent of victims were not advised of pregnancy testing or how to prevent pregnancy following a sexual assault using the so-called morning-after pill; 73 percent were not given information on HIV testing.

And almost one-third of all rape victims develop post-traumatic stress disorder after the assault.

But while men are discouraged from entering the examining room with female survivors, they still can play an important part. Marshall frequently teams up with a female advocate who may be out on her first call. He is paged when the victim is male, and he also helps family members cope.

"Fathers or brothers say things like, `I know who it is, I'm going to kill him!' " said Marshall, who ranks his volunteer work above his job as an analyst at Commonwealth Edison. "They're like, `I'm John Wayne, where's my horse?' I usually let them vent, hopefully verbally, or by pacing, and then I tell them that they aren't going to do their daughter much good if they're locked up in jail."

Men are put on the spot

Only under dire circumstances is Marshall alone with female survivors, and even then it's only until another female volunteer arrives. Over the Christmas holiday, he was the one trusted with the backup pager, a job loaded with responsibility.

"I was a basket case on my first call," said Kim, a volunteer for LaCASA who took her first call last December. "I called Bruce at home to make sure I was doing the procedure right, and he talked me through it. I think I made him a little nervous."

Marshall said he and Kim talked about 20 times during the crisis, from the police station and the hospital.

For those men who do venture inside a rape-crisis center, the training classes can be a bit daunting. Joanie Dovekas, who has taught the last three volunteer groups at LaCASA, says the chemistry of a class changes when men are involved. They are outnumbered. Quiet. One man in the fall class joked he was sitting by the door and wearing his jogging shoes in case he needed to escape quickly.

"We had two men this year (in a class of 15), and that was high," said Dovekas. "I told them, `At times it's going to feel like we're anti-male, but most times the perpetrators are men, even when men are raped.'

"The men get to a point, after they're in it a while, where they understand. For the good guy, which is the majority of men out there, it's shameful to be associated with rape, so few men apply.

"It's usually husbands, fathers of survivors or men who were abused themselves and understand it. They have to have the passion."

`A place where I was needed'

Marshall, 41, keeps his brown hair and mustache neatly trimmed, a far cry from his long-haired, motorcyle-riding days of the past. He is trim and lean, speaks in a subdued voice and studies people through intense, but calming, brown eyes.

He has undergone a life change, one that he prefers to keep private, but his interest in LaCASA began in 1989 after one of his three daughters came home from school with information on the center. He began to hang around the office, helping with maintenance and occasional electrical-wiring problems. Soon the staff asked him to volunteer in other ways.

"My life led me to LaCASA," Marshall said. "I realized I was taking all the time and I needed to start giving back."

Roger Miller, 41, of Island Lake near Wauconda, is one of two men who went through training at LaCASA last fall. He previously worked at a suicide-prevention crisis line but wanted to be more active in his volunteering.

"I didn't even know LaCASA existed. I was just looking for a place where I was needed instead of being one of hundreds," Miller said. He took sexual harrassment-awareness classes at his job at Abbott Labs, but said it wasn't until he volunteered at LaCASA that the information really sunk in.

"I've picked up a lot of insight on how women feel being victimized, and since LaCASA I've brought action against things I've seen at work," he said. "LaCASA welcomes male volunteers. There wasn't a trace of animosity. But they're thorough on their interviews. You can't just walk in off the street."

Words of the survivors

Those who do walk into LaCASA's office on Greenleaf Street in Gurnee see that the all-female full-time staff has created a waiting room that is warm, welcoming and cheery, with impressive patchwork quilts blanketing bare walls.

The quilts are handcrafted by survivors who have drawn, embroidered or painted their own hands on fabric and personalized the squares with words, designs or images.

One quilt piece is outlined with two hands connected by the fingertips. Another says, "Twinkle, twinkle little star, look at me, I've come so far."

Literature about rape and recovery covers one table. On another is a children's book published by the Rape Crisis Center of Berkshire County, Mass., called "it happens to Boys too . . ."

"I was sexually abused a few times when I was a kid. All of the people who abused me were people I loved," wrote Frank in the chapter in which victims tell their stories. "I thought I was just supposed to let it happen and not say anything. I didn't like it and it really scared me sometimes. It really made me feel different than other kids."

A 1991 National Crime Survey reported that 7.7 percent of men surveyed reported being sexually assaulted, but the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault warns the number is low. Flink of LaCASA says 1 in 5 boys are victimized before they turn 18.

"Teenage boys get assaulted and fall through the cracks," said Flink. "There is such a stigma. How can boys be raped? It's the coach, the Cub Scout leader, someone who represented the ideal picture of manhood. There is an automatic homophobic reaction with boys and not with girls."

Marshall is generally the first LaCASA volunteer called when a male survivor is brought to the hospital. "One time it took a long time before the police asked me in," Marshall said. "I asked (the victim) if there was anything I could do, and he asked for a hug. That meant a lot."

Another emotionally taxing night was March 7, 1993, when Tyrone Watson of Zion brutally attacked his family. One child was murdered, a 9-year-old was raped and two more were stabbed and beaten. What Marshall remembers is holding a 2-year-old boy. Then he noticed a teenager standing alone, and he asked the teen to hold the small boy.

"I still think about it, still cry about it," Marshall said quietly. "Staying connected with LaCASA helped me through it."

Fighting a stereotype

Indeed, it's not easy being male in a world where men are the attackers 98 percent of the time. Marshall has taken verbal abuse from police officers and nurses. Families are not always excited about being comforted by a strange woman, and sometimes are even less responsive to a man.

"The reputation is that something must be wrong with you if you're at LaCASA," Marshall said. "One nurse looked at me and said, `Who would want to talk to you ?' and it made me step back. It hurts. It really does."

In addition to hospital work, Marshall has participated in LaCASA's high school prevention program, which addresses date rape, risk reduction, self-defense and myth-busting.

But advocacy is just one community-outreach program men can join. LaCASA, a non-profit, grass-roots organization founded in 1983, has at least seven volunteer programs, and men can also offer administrative support, work newletters, join advisory boards or attend legal proceedings of sexual-assault cases.

LaCASA also offers a support program for the male partners of adult female survivors of sexual abuse.

"We've found that male and female teams for educational purposes is very effective," said Debra Cain, director of the University of Michigan Sexual Assault and Prevention Awareness Center, where men make up almost half of the 400 volunteers. "With a co-ed audience, having a man is very good because the (boys) can pick up on certain things. They're able to see a good role model."

His own personal problems aside, including recent surgery on his feet that will put him out of commission for three weeks, Marshall doesn't see his work at LaCASA ending any time soon.

"I'll do it until people stop assaulting each other," he said. "It's not a hero thing. I might feel like a hero if I came up with a solution to sexual assault. A hero saves someone. I'm not saving anyone's suffering, I'm just there while it's happening."

Which, sometimes, is all it takes to ease some of the pain.

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The Springfield-based Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, or ICASA, has 30 member programs across the state from Aurora to Vandalia. Call ICASA at 217-753-4117 for services and information in your community concerning sexual assault or sexual abuse, including 24-hour hot-line numbers. The address is 123 S. 7th St., Suite 500, Springfield, Ill. 62701-1302.